Blaire

I didn’t know what time Grant came to bed, but when I woke up, he wasn’t beside me. Maybe I was pathetic to feel relieved at seeing the indentation on the pillow and the rumpled sheets that indicated he’d slept beside me. I might have also dreamed the kiss on my forehead, but I was clinging to hope that it was real.

I changed into yoga pants and a sports bra. Working out alleviated stress and Grant was definitely stressing me out with this uncertainty between us. I needed a blast of endorphins. When I shuffled into the kitchen, Collette was taking a tray of biscuits from the oven that smelled heavenly. I mentally rearranged my workout routine. Fat-burning cardio was more effective on an empty stomach, so I was ditching that for lifting weights because I was going to eat first.

I parked my ass on the kitchen island stool as I snuck a piece of bacon in my mouth. I grabbed a still-hot biscuit and dropped it on a small plate. Collette was Grant’s French housekeeper and she was a domestic goddess who could give Martha Stewart a run for her money.

“Where’s Grant?” I asked, sounding nonchalant.

Collette frowned as if surprised by my question. “He’s in New York. He called me early this morning to tell me to be sure to prepare breakfast for you and your security detail.”

“Oh.” I stared at the steaming biscuit. I knew it was Monday, but he usually left in the afternoons for Manhattan.

“Grant said it was an emergency,” the housekeeper explained. Her gentle tone only made me feel worse. Sure it was an emergency. He needed to get away from me. Being left behind doesn’t feel too good now, does it? A taunting voice said. Karma definitely was a bitch.

I looked up at Collette and forced a smile and then forced myself to take a bite of the biscuit. It burned my tongue, so I swallowed it, but it burned my throat instead. The housekeeper slid a glass of orange juice toward me. The look on her face wasn’t exactly pity, but I hated that look, so I continued to stare into space.

I lost the desire for small talk. Tyler and the other security folks came and went from the kitchen. I nodded when they greeted me, but that was all I could muster. I quickly ate my biscuit and more bacon, then I went to the gym in the basement to work off my angst.

Almost two hours later, I was done. I killed myself on the squat rack and finished off on the stair machine. I would feel this later. Bent over, leaning on my thighs, my sweat dripped from my forehead to the mat. I felt euphoric. Grant who?

The Fray blasted in my earphones singing Over My Head and I bobbed my head to its catchy rhythm. My eyes caught Tyler tapping on the glass door and holding a phone. I didn’t have one except the burner Liam left me. My heart jumped. Who else would be calling me?

I wiped the perspiration from my back and walked toward the door. Tyler walked in and handed me the phone. “It’s Mrs. Thorne.”

“Thanks, Tyler.” It looked like today would be a day of forced smiles as I tried to hide my disappointment.

“Amelia, hi.”

“Blaire,” she said. “Marcus told me.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m also disappointed in my son,” she continued. “Why is he in New York?”

“It’s Monday and business as usual,” I replied.

“Oh, Blaire,” she commiserated while calling Grant some names I hadn’t heard before. And then she started making excuses for him, as if trying to convince me not to give up on him. “Men can be so funny about their pride, especially these Thorne men. Sometimes you have to have the patience of a saint. They usually get out of their funk in a day or three. Marcus was the same way when he was younger.”

“I have to commend the senator for being open-minded yesterday.”

“Well, Marcus took a lot of work in the beginning,” Amelia confided with a smile in her voice. “Tell you what? Why don’t we meet for coffee and shopping?”

“Amelia, I’m kind of on lockdown.”

“We’ve got my security and yours, we’ll be fine.”

“Amelia, I don’t think—”

“Listen, Blaire. If I let every security threat dictate how I live my life, I’m letting the bad guys win.”

“My situation is different. Something already happened to your son and people have come after me. It’s not a threat, Amelia, it’s become a reality.”

“Hold on, dear,” Amelia started talking to someone else. After a few minutes, she said, “Morris, my bodyguard, said they have vetted several restaurants in town. And by vetted, they know the background of every employee working there and will do a sweep before we walk in.”

Wow. It was almost like security for a president.

“So, lunch?”

I was actually looking forward to some kind of normal.

“I’ll tell Tyler.”

I emerged from the gym and handed Tyler the phone. “I’m meeting Amelia for lunch. They’re still working out which restaurant.” Not waiting for his reply, I made my way up the steps to go to the main house.

“Does Mr. Thorne know?”

“Grant? He’s in New York. I don’t see why this should concern him.”

“He left specific instructions that you weren’t to leave the house.”

I ignored Tyler, feeling a twinge of guilt because he was only doing his job, but pissed at Grant that he could think to tuck me away somewhere and go his merry way.

“Ms. Callahan,” Tyler called when I was halfway through the kitchen. I exhaled a long-suffering sigh so I didn’t end up yelling at the poor guy. It wasn’t his fault he felt like one of my captors.

“Work it out with Amelia’s security team and then contact Grant and Jake,” I told him. “Agreeing to be held a prisoner in this house wasn’t a part of any deal I struck with your boss.” Maybe if he’d hung around and discussed it with me, I’d be more reasonable.

“We’re on radio-silence right now,” Tyler informed me in turn. “That’s why Mr. Thorne hasn’t called you. He’s working with a security specialist regarding our servers to make sure they’re compliant to the highest encryption and protection.”

“He couldn’t give instructions from here?”

“Mr. Thorne is a hands-on guy with certain things,” Tyler said. “The majority of our servers are in New York.”

“What are you not telling me?”

My bodyguard cut a side-glance before looking straight at me. “It’s not my place to say and, in my personal opinion, I think Mr. Thorne should have talked to you himself. I think he’s foreseeing this business with the Russian mafia getting ugly and he’s shoring up his defenses where he could.”

“Because I couldn’t tell him everything,” I concluded.

“Not judging, Ms. Callahan,” Tyler said. “But we need to be on the same page and soon. We need to know everything that the mob wants from you so we can protect it and use it for leverage.”

“I understand,” I said. I would talk to Liam soon. “I’ll see if Amelia will take a rain check.”

* * *

It turned out Amelia Thorne was a force to be reckoned with when she showed up at Grant’s house and whisked me away to a tiny Italian restaurant, Pepito’s, in Boston’s North End. It was a family restaurant and the owner was a childhood friend of the senator. Our security was camped out in the back alley and the entrance. Tyler and Morris, a member of the senator’s security team, were sitting at a table beside us.

Pepito himself took our orders and suggested a bottle of Barolo to go with our meal. After our bread basket arrived, Amelia gushed about the grassy and peppery notes of our olive oil dip. When our server was out of earshot though, she assessed me with a thoughtful look and asked, “How are you holding up, dear?”

“Surprisingly well.” My conversation with Tyler helped alleviate some of the angst Grant caused me when he left for New York without a word to me. That was an issue to settle face-to-face with him.

“When Marcus told me this morning about the late-night meeting in his study, I immediately called Grant,” Amelia said. “I know my son. It took a lot for him not to relieve me of my guilt for sending him to that gala and getting him mugged.”

I blanched. “Grant never told me that you sent him to the gala.”

“He knew I would learn the truth soon enough, he didn’t want you to harbor guilt over letting me feel responsible, knowing he’d clear it up soon.”

I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, Amelia.”

Her hand peeled mine away from my face. “Look at me, Blaire.”

“I don’t know why you’re so nice to me,” I said when I finally returned her gaze.

“People have short memories, but I don’t,” Amelia said. “And neither does Marcus. You saved my son’s life once upon a time, Blaire. It was barely nine months ago, but it seems Gus has forgotten that. What do you think Marcus would prefer? To win the senate race or to have his son alive and well?”

“But I’ve put your entire family in danger.”

“Ever since Marcus entered politics we’ve received all kinds of threats,” Amelia said. “Don’t get me wrong, I can be very protective of my family, but I know Marcus and Grant are too alpha to be coddled. It’s Valerie I’m most concerned about since she keeps eluding her security team, it’s a wonder Marcus has not restricted her movements.”

“Has she been made aware of the new threats from the ROC?”

“Yes,” Amelia replied. “She’s not happy.” She sighed. “I know she’s giving you a hard time, but don’t think it’s you. She’s possessive of her brother.”

“Grant said he spoiled her.”

“Did he tell you what happened when she was younger?”

“The near-drowning? Yes.”

Amelia’s face sobered. “Thorne men take responsibility seriously and they carry guilt for a very long time.”

I merely nodded. Besides that time at the log cabin, there were two other times I’d awakened to Grant’s nightmares of Val’s drowning.

“Did he tell you he’d been mad at his sister right before she fell off the sailboat?”

My brows furrowed. “No. He just said they’d encountered rough waters and everything went wrong after that.”

“Grant wanted to help his dad secure the boat, but Valerie wouldn’t stop crying. He lost his temper with his little sister as only a fifteen-year-old boy could. Grant admitted to me he had said pretty hurtful things, ordered his sister to stay in the interior cabin, and left her to help control the sailboat. Val followed him right up, lost her balance, and fell overboard. The waves ripped the life jacket off her.”

“Grant said he was the one who put the vest on her,” I murmured, feeling a surge of compassion for the boy he had been, for the guilt he’d harbored all these years. And for Val—what a traumatic experience for such a young girl.

“That’s why his guilt is three-fold,” Amelia explained. “Val barely remembers anything, but for Grant, everything—including the scathing words he said to his sister—is forever etched in his memory.”

A thought occurred to me. “Is that why Grant shuts down when he’s angry?”

Amelia sighed. “Yes. Grant has my grandfather’s Irish temper. Very passionate and quick to anger. After that incident with Valerie, Grant found a way to keep it all inside but the result is avoidance and shutting people out which, unfortunately, is a trait he got from Marcus.” She sighed again. “It’s a good and a bad thing. Good in that he won’t say words that can never be unsaid. Bad that unless that anger dissipates on its own, it will only build and the explosion could be just as bad, if not worse.”

“Marcus told me that Grant wasn’t happy when he found out you’d left out information.” Amelia pursed her lips. “And now he’s off to New York when you’ve just returned. He’s shutting you out, isn’t he?”

I didn’t answer. I was sure Amelia meant well, but I felt she was getting too intrusive into my relationship with Grant.

She must have sensed my uneasiness and laughed. “Goodness, I’m getting too meddlesome, aren’t I?”

I smiled wryly and nodded.

Her eyes sparked merrily. “Oh, well, I understand. I promise I won’t be a troublesome mother-in-law.”

“Amelia,” I groaned. “Stop. You’re making me nervous.”

“All right,” Grant’s mother relented. “We need to get you and Valerie together though.”

My eyes narrowed warily.

“Grant means well, but he’s going about this the wrong way,” Amelia explained. “He needs to take himself out of the equation.”

“Are you suggesting Val and I spend time together by ourselves?” I asked incredulously. That was a terrible idea.

“Well, not exactly. I’ll be with you at first,” Amelia said. “I’m not blind to my daughter’s shortcomings. She’s headstrong and willful, not to mention an adrenaline junkie, and has given us a heart attack one too many times. But one thing I can’t deny is how much she loves her brother. She’s convinced that no woman will be good enough for Grant. It’s unfortunate she thinks that every woman is just after her brother’s money.”

“And you think spending time with me will convince her otherwise?” I challenged.

“Do you know why she’s especially hostile to you?”

I shook my head.

“It was her fault Grant nearly died in that snowstorm and you saved him.”

“Shouldn’t she be thankful instead though?”

“Maybe she would have been if Grant had not fallen for you,” Amelia tried to explain her illogical assumption. “But Grant nearly dying because of her has righted the scales in her mind. Not that she had ever pulled that guilt card on her brother, but it has always colored the way their relationship has developed ever since her near-drowning. Now comes this woman who has saved her brother’s life. How can she compete with that?”

“But it’s not a competition!”

“That is why both of you need to spend time with each other without Grant.”

I was still doubtful, but there was a bigger priority. “I think I need to figure out my relationship with your son first.”

She smiled warmly. “Of course. I do have one more question and I want you to be honest.”

“Okay.” My tone was tentative.

“Do you love my son?”

I did, but Grant deserved to know first before anyone else. The server brought out our food, which gave me some reprieve, but Amelia continued to look at me expectantly and made no move to serve, so I knew it was no empty question.

“I care for Grant very much, but we haven’t discussed our feelings yet,” I replied as honestly as I could. “You see, I never thought he could be mine. I do think I love him, but whatever we feel for each other, it’s between him and me.”

Grant’s mother nodded, but there was a tightening around her lips that told me she wasn’t satisfied with my answer. “I’ve never seen my son behave this way around a woman before, so I’m very hopeful that he’s found the one.” Amelia scooped a healthy serving of pasta alla vodka onto her plate and urged me to do the same, handing me the fork. “I like you a lot, Blaire.” She sniffed. “But if you hurt him in any way, you’ll see the wrath of this southern momma.”

I had to grin at her last statement.

“I’m not kidding.” She glared at me, but it held no heat. She smiled and shrugged. Oh, the threat was there and I didn’t doubt it, it was only softened by her southern charm.

The rest of our lunch progressed to less sensitive, but no less important topics.

Like shoes.